A class attendee brought this up, noting that "someone used black paint spray on one of my cameras, rendering it useless"
Though there are a few cameras that claim to be able to alert when this happens, I do not know of any way to overcome this.
Any ideas? I guess you could mount the camera farther away? Anything else?
What about, in the case of a bullet camera, putting a sun-shield underneath the camera to make the opening more recessed?
Unless the FOV is >=180, there is no reason the lens has to be totally exposed.
If the problem is only one of vandalism (in absence of another crime), there are 3m films available that can be replaced, post incident.
Mirrored or smoked domes take all the fun out of spray painting, you are not sure how to approach them without being captured or when you are done. A sly touch would be to have a lens size portion of the dome unsmoked, drawing the fire away from the hidden lens.
Aside from those 'anti tamper' or 'anti vandal' alarms, I'm not sure there is a good standard method.
There was an integrator in another class who experiemented with anti-graffiti spray coating (offered by a traffic/city CCTV vendor) on the domes (think non-stick cooking spray) that prevented the paint film from drying on the camera and just dropped it off like raindrops.
However, the main issue was blowing dust would eventually coat the camera, and UV from the sun would cloud it up, obscuring the FoV.
After high-hopes, he abandoned the coating as more trouble than it was worth!
Trigger release of mild solvent cleaner on tamper, spin wipe, rinse, repeat. 1.7L capacity.
Or you could just auto-turn the dome to a clear section.
Worth it just for the reaction shots alone!
P.S. That is the type of thing we should be giving out patents for, right?
One thing we do that has been surprisingly effective, is place all dome pole mounts to point in one direction, then rotate the internal camera in the real direction of interest. This is great on outdoor domes. Whenever possible, camera placement is such that you cannot get to the camera without being seen by the camera itself, or a nearby supporting camera.
I can't say this item that follows will apply and it may have been what Brian Rhodes was mentioning.
I saw a TED Talk video of something that may be useful. It is some kind of "super hydrophobic" coating called Ultra Ever Dry. I have not used the product nor can I verify if it is useful in this purpose.
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